By ditching landmark climate legislation, America makes the world unsafe | Kate Aronoff

The rest of the world needs to start treating the US as what it is: a dangerous country that needs to be reined in

As the now very likely collapse of the Build Back Better Act underlines, what's exceptional about the United States is its extraordinary ability to dole out harm. Besides its ever-ballooning military budget and foreign wars, America also makes the world unsafe thanks to the prodigious amount of fossil fuel it continues to send around the world.

Oil Change International, Earthworks and the Center for International Environmental Law have found that burning the oil and gas expected to be drilled in the US alone over the next decade could gobble up 10% of the entire world's remaining carbon budget, the amount of carbon dioxide that can be released before the planet warms above 1.5C.

Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic and the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet - And How We Fight Back